Painting Out of Conflict: Velázquez, Rubens, and the Dutch in Time of War

January 3, 2005;
15 Minutes;
Video

Svetlana AlpersApril 3, 2005

The distinguished and influential art historian Svetlana Alpers delivers a major slide-illustrated lecture that looks at the art of Rubens and his contemporaries in the context of war. She asks, "How have artists dealt with war? Has art served to encourage conflict? Should artists be blamed if they don't deal with war?"

Alpers is professor emerita at UC Berkeley, where she taught from 1962 to 1994, and a visiting scholar at New York University. The recipient of countless awards and fellowships, she is the author of, among others, The Art of Describing: Dutch Art in the Seventeenth Century and The Making of Rubens. Her latest book, Vexations of Art: Velázquez and Others, is forthcoming this year from Yale University Press.